James Washington confesses to cold case murder during heart attack... SURVIVES and now faces life in prison

A man who made a deathbed confession that linked him to a cold case murder from 1995 now faces jail because of what he thought was a last-ditch effort for a clean conscience.

James Washington was having a heart attack when he called a police officer over to his hospital bed in 2009.

While he hoped for absolution, what he got instead was a medical miracle. And now, a murder charge.

Record: When Washington had the heart attack, he was in jail for a different crime. He had always been linked to the murder of Joyce Goodener in 1995 but there was never enough to charge him

Washington had long been linked to the murder of Joyce Goodener, who was found stabbed in the neck, beaten to death with a cinderblock and set on fire in an abandoned Nashville, Tennessee house.

A lack of sufficient evidence- most significantly there were no DNA samples- kept the police from arresting anyone over the past 17 years.

'I didn't have any trust in the system,' Ms Goodener's daughter Sonya Kimbrell told local station WSMV.

'All of a sudden, I got this phone call and they said, "We think we found him."'

Victim: Joyce Goodener was found with a stab wound to her neck, having been badly beaten with a cement block and then lit on fire after she was killed

Relief: Goodener's daughter Sonya Kimbrell (pictured) did not believe that they would find her mother's killer

At the time of his 2009 heart attack, Washington was in jail for a different crime, so when he was escorted to the hospital with the severe chest pains, there was a police officer nearby.

'He kind of got as best as he could, motioned, and said "I have something to tell you. I have  to get something off my conscience and you need to hear this,"' said transport guard James Tomlinson.

'He said "I killed somebody. I beat her to death,"' Mr Tomlinson added.

Confessor: James Tomlinson was the guard who transported Washington to the hospital during his heart attack, and he was the one to hear Washington's confession

With that weight lifted off his conscience but added on to his rap sheet, Washington proceeded to live through the heart attack and was sentenced to life in prison.

Even though he tried to talk back the confession in the wake of the hospital stay, he was found guilty in court and now faces up to 51 years behind bars.